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News of the blantant abuse of the ISA in Malaysia to arrest a journalist, a MP and a blogger in Malaysia have spread far and wide. The following is just one of the many international reports on Malaysia’s infamy.

An act of intolerance
Chiew-Siah Tei
September 23 2008 – guardian.co.uk
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The arrests bring our attention to two major issues: the ISA and the true reasons behind its enforcement.

Firstly, the act and its enforcement are against human rights. In force since 1960, the act is a preventive detention law. Under the act, a person may be detained by the police for up to 60 days without trial for an act which allegedly prejudices the security of the country or any part thereof. After that, the person may be further detained, to be reviewed and approved by the minister of home affairs every two years. During the 60 days, the detainee is deprived of contact with the outside world – including family members and lawyer – and former detainees have testified to being subjected to severe physical and psychological torture.

Secondly, the act is nothing but a tool for the ruling party, the Barisan National (BN), to suppress dissident voices. Since its enactment, the act has been used against people who criticise the government and defend human rights. For decades, for supposedly “threatening the security and the economy of the country”, political opponents of the BN government and human rights activists have been put behind bars. During Operation Lalang in 1987, for example, opposition leaders and social activists were held under this act after mass arrests.

Close studies of the recent detainments indicate that these measures only expose the incompetence of the United Malaysia National Organisation-led government.